The present invention is directed generally to light-emitting electronic adornments and more specifically to articles of personal adornment such as jewelry and clothing including electronic circuitry for simulating the natural flickering of light from faceted gemstones.
Electronic light-emitting jewelry has previously been known. See for example this inventor's own prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,296,459 and his U.S. Pat. No. 4,605,882 and the references cited therein. Some forms of electronic jewelry utilize an oscillator or multivibrator for timing the flashing of one or more light sources in a fixed sequence. Examples of these can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,521,041; 3,866,035; 3,901,121; and 4,170,036. Other devices include means for varying the frequency of the oscillator or multivibrator and/or to change the sequence of flashing lights as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,737,647; 4,161,018; 4,264,845 and 4,254,451.
The devices of all of the above references suffer from lack of independent control or very limited control of both pulse width and pulse rate. The problem is that when the pulse width is decreased, the pulse rate increases and vice versa.
Lack of independent control of pulse width and pulse rate leads to several problems. One problem is related to the visual effect. A short pulse width is desired because it produces a quick short flash of light. But to obtain a short pulse width, the pulse rate must be increased. The result is a pulse rate that is too high for good visual effect. For example, even a compromise between pulse width and pulse rate results in too high a pulse rate, generally between one and ten pulses per second. With only one or just a few lights, this pulse rate appears monotonous. With many lights, the visual effect improves but the high amount of visual stimuli is unlike a natural piece of jewelry which produces occasional flickers and random bursts of light.
Another problem is the high current drain required by the high pulse rates. The duty cycle for a square wave is 50% but if two or more lights are used and light is continuously emitted, the effective duty cycle is 100%. Larger batteries are necessary to avoid frequent replacement and this undesirably increases the physical size and weight of the jewelry.
Accordingly, a primary object of the present invention is to provide light-emitting electronic adornments which are operative to more closely simulate natural flickering light.
A related object is to provide light-emitting electronic adornments with improved visual effects and reduced current drain.
Another object is to provide such adornments with independent control of pulse width and pulse rate.
Another object is to provide such adornments with the capability to reduce the pulse width and pulse rate, and thereby reduce the duty cycle to less than 0.04 percent.
Another object is to provide such adornments with a simple means for pulsing one or more light sources at random intervals.
Another object is to provide articles of electronic jewelry that are small in physical size and weight.
Finally, another object is to provide such adornments which closely simulate the random flickering of polished surfaces and faceted gemstones.